


The joy of Christmas traditions

by ForsakenAngel88



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas traditions, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForsakenAngel88/pseuds/ForsakenAngel88
Summary: Lance is upset that Hunk can't help with their Christmas tradition this year, but finds help else where. Keith has never had a real Christmas that he can remember, but Lance teaches him about some of the traditions.





	The joy of Christmas traditions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinterAndLittleBrunettes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterAndLittleBrunettes/gifts).



> This is a secret santa gift for my friend Sam. She requested something with her tradition of making a gingerbread house with her family and this was the result! I am soooo happy with how this came out and I hope you all enjoy it too! Be warned there is a lot of fluff! <3

Lance shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked down one of the Garrison halls. He had just come from one of the labs where Hunk and Pidge were working on something with Sam. 

 

“Stupid Hunk with his stupid tech.” he mumbled to himself, pouting as he frowned at the floor intently.

 

Hunk had promised that they were going to make their gingerbread house tonight, like they did every Christmas Eve, but now he was too caught up in the new weapon they had been working on the past few months. Apparently, they just had a breakthrough and he couldn’t take a break. 

 

Lance closed his eyes and sighed. Now what was he going to do? It wouldn’t be the same if he made it by himself. He turned the corner at the end of the hall and bumped into someone. 

 

“Oh, sorry-” he began, looking up to see Keith. “Hey man, sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.” he smiled sadly.

 

Keith raised an eyebrow. “You alright? You seem upset.” he asked, crossing his arms.

 

Lance sighed again, looking back down at the floor. “Yeah, Hunk was supposed to come help me with something but now he’s too busy.” He frowned for a moment, getting an idea before looking back up at Keith. “You wouldn’t happen to be free now, would you?” he asked, hopefully.

 

“Uh, I guess?” Keith looked confused for a moment. “What did you need help with?”

 

Lance’s smile widened. “Making a gingerbread house!” he exclaimed, excitedly.

 

“A what?” Keith asked, tilting his head to the side slightly in confusion. 

 

Lance gasped in shock. “You don’t know what a gingerbread house is?!” 

 

Keith shook his head. “Should I?”

 

“Yes you should!” Lance yelled. “It’s one of best parts of Christmas!”

 

Keith’s face fell slightly as he looked away. “Oh… Well, we never really did much for Christmas.” 

 

Lance winced at his insensitivity. He should have known Keith probably never got a chance to have Christmas traditions, being orphaned at a young age, but he was going to change that. He was going to show Keith what he had missed out on as a child. He grabbed Keith by the arm and started to drag him towards the kitchens.

 

“Well, come on then. I’ll show you how to make one.” He smiled at Keith reassuringly. 

 

Keith smiled back softly. “Alright.”

  
  


\----

 

Once they got to the kitchen Lance released Keith and walked over to the cupboards lining the far wall. He noticed that no one else was here, which was understandable, since a lot of students had gone home for Christmas break. 

 

Keith followed slowly behind, unsure what to do.

 

Lance began pulling out baking trays, bowls, spoons and measuring equipment, handing them to Keith and he walked over to the other side of the room. “Just put those on the bench. I’ll grab the ingredients and then we can get started.” he explained before disappearing into a walk in pantry. 

 

Keith placed the equipment onto the bench carefully as to not break anything. He was feeling a bit nervous since he had never baked anything before in his life. 

 

Lance appeared moments later with an armful of boxed and packaged items. “Okay, this should be everything.” he said, placing the ingredients down next to the equipment. 

 

Keith looked over at everything, having no idea where to start. “So what do we do first?”

 

Lance smiled at Keith’s apparent eagerness. “I’ll preheat the oven if you want to line the baking trays?” 

 

“Line them? What does that mean?” Keith asked, confused.

 

Lance chuckled. “With baking paper. See that roll of paper, just rip enough off to cover the trays. That’s to make sure the gingerbread doesn’t stick.” he explained, turning around to turn the oven on.

 

Keith nodded. That made sense, he thought to himself. He picked up the paper and covered the trays, tearing it where the paper covered the edge of the tray.

 

Lance came back up beside him and handed him an apron. “Here. You might wanna put this on. Baking can get a bit messy.” he explained, pulling his over his head and tying the back around his waist.

 

Keith took the apron and did the same, pulling his hair into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. 

 

Lance had to look away, feeling his cheeks heat up. He had only seen Keith with his hair up a couple other times, but it always made his heart skip a beat. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. Now wasn’t the time to have a freak out about how attractive he thought Keith was. 

 

“Okay, so, what’s next?” Keith asked, looking over at Lance. 

 

Lance cleared his throat, and began picking up the dry ingredients. “Alright, so first we need to make the gingerbread dough.” He replied, grabbing one of the measuring cups. “Can you measure out three and a half cups of self raising flour, please, and put it in the bowl.”

 

“Sure.” Keith replied, taking the flour from Lance and pouring it into the measuring cup. He took his time as to not spill the flour everywhere. Once he was done, he noticed that Lance had measured out all the other ingredients and had created quite a mess on his side of the bench. He chuckled. 

 

Lance looked down at his mess and then over to Keith’s semi cleaned space and pouted. “Oh shush. Baking is supposed to be messy.” 

 

Keith laughed, pouring his last cup into the bowl. “Uh huh. I’m surprised you haven’t covered yourself in ingredients yet.” he teased. 

 

Lance glared at him before smirking. “Oh, what’s that there?” he asked innocently, pointing to Keith’s hair.

 

Keith frowned, patting his head. “What is it?” he asked, not feeling anything there.

 

Lance smiled, shoving his hand in the packet of flour while Keith was distracted. “Its right here.” he said, rubbing his flour covered hand into Keith’s hair, laughing. 

 

Keith gawked, shoving Lance away as flour fell down around his face. He shook his head, trying to get the flour to come out, unsuccessfully. “You’re gonna pay for that.” he said as he grabbed a fist full of flour from the table. 

 

Lance was too busy laughing to realise how quick Keith had recovered and before he knew it, he had a face full of flour and was sputtering the white substance from his mouth. He stood up and stared in shock while Keith laughed at him.  

 

Keith hardly ever laughed, Lance could in fact count on one hand the amount of times he had seen Keith actually laughing. Seeing him here now, with his head thrown back and laughing out loud heartily made his heart swell with joy. He did this. He had made Keith laugh and he wanted to see more. He wanted Keith to be happy. He wanted to be the one to make Keith happy. 

 

“Too shocked to retaliate? That’s unlike you.” Keith chucked, crossing his arms and smirking over at Lance.

 

Lance blinked out of his trance, his eyes wide. He’d been caught staring.  “Pfft no. I was, just, caught of guard at how quickly you recovered is all.” he replied dismissively, crossing his arms and looking away. 

 

Keith took the opportunity to grab another handful of flour and throw it at Lance. “Maybe you’re just too slow.” he taunted.

 

Lance gaped at him as flour fell from his hair. “Oh, it’s on!” He yelled, grabbing the bag of flour off the table, laughing.  

 

Keith’s eyes widened before he ran around the bench, trying to get enough distance so Lance couldn’t dump the whole bag on him. 

 

Lance grinned evilly as be chased Keith around the kitchen. “Come here, Keith!”

 

“No way!” Keith called back, laughing. He took a moment to look behind him to see how close Lance was, which he soon realised was a mistake as he tumbled to the floor, tripping on the corner of a stool. He gasped, flailing his arms in front of him to break his fall. 

 

Lance saw the whole thing unfold before him as Keith went down, but was running to fast to stop himself and ended up tripping over Keith’s feet, toppling over and landing sprawled out across Keith’s back. He heard Keith groan from under him and rolled off to the side so Keith could recover. 

 

The bag of flour that Lance had been holding had been sent flying through the air when Lance tripped and crashed down in front of their faces, covering them both in white powder. 

 

They both glanced at each other, laying side by side on the kitchen floor stunned, before laughing hysterically at what had happened.

 

Keith shook his head after a few moments and calmed himself down. “Come on. Let’s continue.” he moved to stand up, offering his hand down to help Lance. 

 

Lance took his hand and pulled himself up, looking back over to their bowl of dry ingredients. “Right.” He said, wiping the flour from his face and moving back to the bench. “Next we add the butter and then beat until a breadcrumb consistency.” he explained, dumping the chopped up butter into the bowl.

 

He handed Keith a glass jug, noticing Keith had also cleaned the flour from his face. “Here, I need you to whisk the eggs and golden syrup together.” 

 

Keith took his ingredients and began whisking as he watched Lance mix his ingredients ungracefully together, bits of mixture flying out of the bowl onto the bench and Lance’s apron. He wasn’t kidding when he said baking could get messy. 

 

Lance finished up with his bowl and set it down, turning to Keith. “Pour your mixture into here while I’m mixing.” he instructed.

 

Keith put his whisk down and carefully started to pour the liquid into Lance’s bowl. A few moments later, Lance turned off the beater. “Ta-da! Now we have dough.” Lance smiled, showing Keith the bowl. 

 

Keith smiled back. “Great. Now we have to cut it right?”

 

Lance put the bowl back onto the table. “Soon, yeah.” He replied, grabbing the flour, causing Keith to subconsciously take a step back. Lance chuckled. “Don’t worry. I won’t throw anymore flour at you.” he said, coating the bench with flour. 

 

Keith moved back cautiously as he watched Lance pull the dough from the bowl and place it on the floured surface. He began to knead the dough, pushing the ball out flat before pulling it back in and repeating. Keith could see Lance’s arm muscles working under his shirt, flexing with every movement. 

 

A sudden urge came over him to touch Lance’s arm, to feel the muscles move under his grip. His eyes widened at the thought and he clasped his hands behind his back to make sure he did no such thing. He took a small step away for safe measures as well. He wasn’t usually a touchy person, but Lance always made him feel comfortable. Plus, it didn’t help that  _ Lance _ was a touchy person, so he’d always be draping his arm around Keith’s shoulders, or dragging him around by his arm. He kinda liked it, if he was being honest with himself; and he wanted more. 

 

Lance stopped his kneading and grabbed a rolling pin. “Alright. Almost there.” he said, as he began to roll the dough out evenly. A few moments later, he put the rolling pin down.

 

Keith stepped out the way as Lance walked past to go back to the cupboard, watching quietly as he fished around for what he was looking for. “AH HA!” he exclaimed, emerging with some different shaped cookie cutters. “I knew they were there somewhere.” he said, walking back to the bench.

 

“Are these to build the house?” Keith asked.

 

“Yep. We need to cut each individual piece so when it's cooked we can glue it all together.” Lance explained, pushing one of the pieces into the dough, cutting out the shape. 

 

“Glue? Is there edible glue?” Keith raised his eyebrow.  

 

Lance laughed. “No, silly. We use icing, it just acts like a glue and holds the pieces together.”

 

Keith frowned. “Oh… Sorry.” he mumbled insecurely. He suddenly felt out of place and out of his depth. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to help Lance. Lance was probably used to Hunk’s amazing cooking skills. They probably made these amazing gingerbread houses together and here he was barely contributing, and had no idea what he was doing.

 

Lance looked over at Keith and noticed the change in attitude. “Hey, it’s alright. I didn’t know much when I first started either.” he shyly looked down as he continued to cut the dough. “If you’re having fun though, we could maybe try baking something else another time?”

 

Keith looked up, shocked. Lance actually wanted to spend more time with him? But wasn’t cooking his thing with Hunk? He didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. “Uh, what about Hunk? Don’t you guys usually bake together?” he asked quietly.

 

“Yeah I guess, but he’s usually busy with engineer stuff, and I can still bake with him. Doesn't mean I can’t bake with you, too.” Lance rambled, feeling himself becoming flustered. “If you wanted to, that is?” 

 

Keith smiled. “No, I’d like that.”

 

Lance smiled and glanced up at Keith. “Cool. Well if there’s anything in particular you wanted to make just let me know.” 

 

“I’ll have a think about it.” Keith nodded.

 

“Alright. Well, these are done, so now we just gotta put them in the oven.” Lance replied, taking the trays over to the oven and placing them inside.

 

“I guess we should clean up a bit while they cook.” Keith suggested, looking at the giant mess they’d made.

 

Lance chuckled. “That’s probably a good idea.” he replied, walking over to a smaller closet near the sinks. He grabbed out a broom and some cloths and brought them back to the bench. “Most of this stuff should fit in the dishwasher, but some of it will have to be washed manually.” 

 

“You wanna do that while I clean the floor and bench?” Keith asked, grabbing the broom. 

 

“Sure thing.” Lance said, taking the dirty utensils over to the sink to wash them. 

 

About ten minutes later they had finished cleaning and were just waiting for the timer to go off on the oven.

 

“So do you and Hunk do this every year?” Keith asked, leaning back against the bench.

 

Lance smiled. “Yeah. It’s been our tradition since we were kids.” he sighed fondly. “We used to go over to each other’s houses every year and try and make the biggest one we could make.” he chucked. “Of course the bigger they got the less stable they were, so now we just try to outdo the previous year’s decorating.”

 

Keith smiled sadly. “That must have been fun. I’m sorry he’s not here to help this year.”

 

Lance bumped Keith’s shoulder with his. “Don’t be sorry. This has been fun. Besides, traditions can be changed. Maybe we could start a new tradition?”

 

Keith looked up and smiled. “That sounds nice. I don’t know much about Christmas traditions, but this has been fun.” He looked back over at the oven. “Definitely beats being alone.” 

 

Lance glance over at him sadly. He couldn’t imagine spending Christmas alone. He had always had his family and friends around. “Well, you’re not alone anymore. We can’t do much this year since we are stuck here, but we can still hang out and do Christmasy stuff. You should come and spend Christmas with my family next year, though. That will be an experience for you.” he chuckled. 

 

“What’s it like?” Keith asked, curiously. He’d always wondered what having a big family was like.

 

“Crazy!” Lance exclaimed. “The kids are usually up at the crack of dawn wanting to open presents, so that means everyone has to be up because opening presents is a whole family thing. My mum always made the most elaborate breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I swear, you will not be hungry for a week after a Christmas at my house.” he chuckled, thinking about it. “We usually all just hang out and help with the cooking when needed, or played with the kids. It’s really nice.” he sighed.

 

Keith smiled. It sounded like something from a movie. The whole family sitting together around the table, laughing and having fun. “That sounds like a nice experience. Would your family mind?”

 

“Not at all. In fact, my mum will probably try to adopt you. She’s already adopted Hunk; he’s now an honorary member of my family, so she definitely won’t have any problem with you.” Lance laughed. “It can get very overwhelming at times though, but we can always go hide in my old room for a timeout if you needed one.

 

“Oh!” Lance exclaimed, suddenly. “If we get some time off for New Year’s eve, we should totally go to my families bonfire.”

 

“Bonfire?” Keith queried.  

 

“Yeah. They have one every new year. I should invite the whole team. It’ll be really fun! We can have toasted marshmallows and smores and dance to my brother playing guitar.” Lance replied, excitedly.  

 

Keith laughed at Lance’s excitement, finding it absolutely adorable. “I can’t dance, but the rest sounds fun.” 

 

Lance smiled brightly. “I can show you how!” 

 

Keith was about to reply, when the oven timer sounded. 

 

“Looks like they are done!” Lance said excitedly, grabbing the oven mitts and pulled the cookies out of the oven. He laid them down to cool. “Alright, here comes the fun part!” 

 

“Decorating?” Keith asked, moving back to the bench.

 

Lance sent him a wide smile as he walked back to the pantry. “You got it.”

 

He came back to the bench a few moments later with a variety of candy and a bag of icing. 

 

“Did you wanna try gluing the house together?” he asked Keith.

 

“Sure.” Keith smiled, excited to give it a go.

 

Lance brought the trays over with the cooled pieces of gingerbread and a board for the base. “Alright, first thing you wanna do is spread a line of icing on this board so the wall will stand.” he instructed, pointing to where he wanted Keith to pipe the icing. 

 

Keith nodded and began to try and pipe the icing. It came out clumpy and not fluid at all.

 

Lance chuckled. “Here hold the bag like this.” He took Keith’s hand and placed it around the nozzle of the bag. “Then move this hand here.” he moved Keith’s other hand near the top of the bag, lifting the bag up. “This way you have more control over where the icing will go and the icing will come out more freely.” he explained, moving his hands over Keith’s to create the first line. 

 

Keith’s breath hitched in his throat as Lance hovered behind him, with his arms around him. He hoped Lance couldn’t hear his heart beating in his chest or feel his hands shake under his. He just nodded, not trusting his voice and followed Lance’s direction.

 

Lance stood back and smiled widely. “See, perfect! Now just add a wall and hold it in place until the icing dries.” he handed Keith a wall piece.

 

Keith took the piece and placed it on the line of icing he’d just created, holding it there for a few moments. When he let go, the wall remained standing. He looked over to Lance, proudly. 

 

“Great, now do the same for the other three. We’ll also put icing up the edge of the walls to hold them in place.” Lance replied, smiling, happy to see Keith having a good time. 

 

Keith successfully added the remaining walls and even the roof without any difficulty. 

 

“I gotta say, you are a natural gingerbread house maker. You should have seen my first attempt. The roof kept collapsing in on itself.” Lance chuckled. 

 

Keith smiled. “Well I used to build things a lot growing up.” He handed the icing bag over to Lance.

 

Lance grabbed it and started piping windows and door shapes onto the walls. “Oh? Like what?”

 

“My dad used to make small wooden furniture and decorations in his spare time, so he showed me how to make some stuff.” Keith mused as he watched Lance work.

 

“Oh, so like carpentry? That’s pretty cool.” Lance finished up his piping and placed the bag down. “So can you still make some stuff?” he asked, handing Keith a bag of candy.

 

Keith shrugged, taking the bag before opening it. “I dunno. It’s been a while.” He started to place the coloured candies on the roof with icing to make roof tiles. “I can carve some stuff though. If I ask Shiro, I’m sure he’d still have all my pieces I’ve made.”

 

Lance stopped what he was doing and looked over at Keith in shock. “That is so cool. Will you show me? I’d love to see them!”

 

Keith blushed at the sudden attention, but smiled, feeling giddy that Lance was interested in something he’d done. “Sure. Some of them aren’t very good though, so don’t laugh.”

 

“No promises.” Lance chuckled as he worked on setting some candy canes on either side of the door he’d made earlier. 

 

Keith sent him a small glare. “What about you? Do you have any hobbies?” 

 

Lance hummed, moving onto another candy. “Not really. My family is kinda full on, so there wasn’t a lot of time to do things.” he added some leaf shaped candy to the top of the door. “We used to go swimming a lot when we lived in Cuba, but once we moved here I’ve just been focused on school, you know?”

 

Keith looked over at him, surprised by his answer. “What would you want to do?” he asked, putting his candy down, finished with the roof.

 

Lance glanced up at him, biting his lip in thought. “I’m not sure?” he mused, trying to think of something. “Maybe photography? Being is space made me realise how much we take for granted. It’d be nice to capture the small things, I guess.” he rubbed the back of his head bashfully. “Sorry, that’s probably a really lame answer.”

 

Keith frowned. “Not at all. I wasn’t expecting something so deep, but I think it’s a great idea.” 

 

Lance scoffed and looked back down at the gingerbread house, fiddling with some more candy to keep his hands busy. “Cause I’m just the goofball right? I couldn’t possibly have a serious thought.” 

 

Keith was shocked at the sudden outburst and grabbed one of Lance’s hands to pull his attention away from the gingerbread house. “That’s not what I meant.” he rushed out, looking Lance in the eye. 

 

Lance just stood there in shock as Keith continued to ramble.

 

“Lance, I think you’re an incredibly deep and complex person and I know that goofball persona is only a small part of who you really are. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know you and you shouldn’t let their opinions upset you.”

 

Lance felt his cheeks heat up at Keith’s confession. He had no idea that Keith had paid that much attention to him. “Uh, thanks.” he said awkwardly looking down at his hand which Keith was still holding onto. He noticed Keith wasn’t wearing his usual finger-less gloves so he could feel the warmth from his coarse skin against his own smooth skin. It made his heart jump into his throat as he glanced back up at Keith.

 

Noticing Keith had a bit of icing smeared on his cheek, he chuckled, making Keith frown.

 

“What?” Keith asked.

 

“You have a bit of icing on your cheek.” Lance replied, giggling.

 

Keith’s frown deepened as he let go of Lance’s hand to try and rub it off. 

 

Lance immediately missed the contact, but pushed the feeling aside. “No, you missed it. It’s here.” Lance pointed to the spot on his own face.

 

Keith lifted his hand to try again, but still managed to miss it completely. “Better?”

 

Lance laughed. “No, you’re completely off.” 

 

Keith frowned again and rubbed his hand down his entire cheek, managing to get some of it. 

 

Lance smiled at Keith’s attempt. “Here, you missed a bit.” he said, lifting his hand to rub the last remaining piece off, his fingers caressing the soft skin of Keith’s face. He noticed Keith’s eyelashes flutter at the touch and swore he felt him lean into his hand ever so slightly.

 

His eyes locked onto Keith’s and he felt himself get lost in the depths until Keith coughed awkwardly and broke eye contact. His cheeks flushed red as he pulled away to look down at their gingerbread house. Lance had to bite his lip to stop himself confessing how adorable he thought Keith was when he was shy. Keith was usually so confident; seeing this side of him made Lance realise he wanted to see more, he wanted to know all of Keith.

 

“Thanks.” Keith mumbled quietly, trying to compose himself. “This was actually really fun.” He looked back up at Lance. “So thank you for asking me to help.”

 

Lance smiled fondly. “I had fun, too. Thanks for hanging out with me. We should hang out more.” he said quickly, feeling a little embarrassed. He really hoped that he could spend more time with Keith. He hadn’t realised how fun and laid back Keith could actually be, until today. “I mean I think we made a pretty good team today. Our gingerbread house looks amazing.” he motioned to the house on the bench.

 

“Yeah, we do.” Keith smiled widely. “We should show the others.” he replied, his chest feeling fluttery and light at the thought of spending more time with Lance. 

 

Lance nodded, and picked up the board. “Alright, let’s go show off our creation!” 

 

The two of them began to walk out of the kitchen when Keith looked up and noticed something as they walked under the door frame.

 

“Why is there a twig hanging from the door?” he asked, confused, stopping to get a better look. It seemed like such a random thing to be there.

 

Lance looked up, his eyes growing wide in realisation. “Oh-uh... That’s just another stupid Christmas tradition.” he explained quickly, feeling his cheeks heat up.

 

“Hanging a part of a tree in a doorway is tradition? Why?” Keith looked down at Lance, expecting more of an explanation.

 

Lance let out a small breath. He was hoping Keith would just move on and not ask anymore questions. “The tradition is that when two people stand underneath one they have to kiss.” he replied, trying not to sound flustered. 

 

“Huh.” Keith mused, glancing over to Lance. Lance looked very conflicted like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t. Keith took a breath to calm himself before leaning over to Lance, pressing his lips against his, pulling back after a moment. “I could get used to these Christmas traditions.” he said simply, giving Lance a smirk and a wink as he continued on down the hall. 

 

Lance was shocked, his mouth opening and closing in disbelief. Keith had just kissed him! Shaking his head to knock himself out of his thoughts, he chased Keith down the hall. 

 

Keith just laughed, shoving his hands in his pockets as they both continued to find the rest of the team.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! I hope you all have a great holiday season <3
> 
> As always feel free to come talk voltron and klance to me on my tumblr [@forsakenangel88](http://forsakenangel88.tumblr.com/) or twitter [@ForsakeAngel88](https://twitter.com/ForsakeAngel88)


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